Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love-Life

by Anthony Burgess

Before Shakespeare in Love , there was Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun : a magnificent, bawdy telling of Shakespeare's love life.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Shakespeare, Literature, Historical, Classics, Novels

234 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).

He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .

Reviews

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Să nu credeți că ignor diferența dintre un document istoric și o ficțiune :)

Am extras din romanul lui Anthony Burgess cîteva ipoteze cu privire la WS. Unele au oarece temei, cele mai multe, nu. Voi prezenta mai jos lista lor și le voi însoți fie de semnul scepticismului absolut (--), fie de semnul încrederii absolute (++). Așadar, în notația mea, (--) înseamnă: nu cred deloc, iar (++): s-ar putea să fie așa cum spune Burgess, deși s-ar putea să fie și altfel. Semnul (+-) desemnează resemnarea absolută: îmi suspend judecata, nu pot să mă pronunț, mă abțin.

Catalogul ipotezelor:

1. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) a început să scrie sonete pe cînd se afla încă în Stratford-upon-Avon, pe la 14-15 ani: (--). De fapt, WS a început să scrie destul de tîrziu, oricum după vîrsta de 20 de ani. Primul lui poem s-a tipărit în 1593. Cam tot atunci a redactat și prima lui piesă de teatru...

2. WS a urmat școala de gramatică (grammar school, King's New School) din localitatea în care s-a născut: a studiat, probabil, latina și cîțiva scriitori antici, Plaut printre ei: (++). Se presupune că l-a avut ca magistru pe un anume Thomas Jenkins, atestat în școala din Stratford după 1575.

3. WS nu a iubit-o pe Anne Hathaway cu care s-a căsătorit, totuși, în noiembrie 1582, cînd primește o așa-numită „dispensă de căsătorie” de la episcopul din Worcester. Avea 18 ani, soția avea, probabil, cu 8 ani mai mult decît el și era însărcinată. Anne a născut în mai 1583 o fată: au botezat-o Susanna. În februarie 1585, Anne naște doi copii gemeni, un băiat, Hamnet, și o fată, Judith; Hamnet va muri la vîrsta de 11 ani, în august 1596: (++).

4. WS a fost pedagog în casa unui anume John Quedgeley, judecător de pace și gentleman; judecătorul de pace avea 5 băieți și l-a angajat pe WS ca profesor de latină. Ipoteza pornește de la o anecdotă spusă de un actor la mult timp după moartea lui Shakespeare. Povestitorul pretindea că i-a fost prieten și că o știa chiar de la WS: (--).

5. Trimis în Bristol să cumpere o carte, WS vede în ușa unei case o femeie cu părul negru și pielea întunecată, arămie. Ar fi cea dintîi întruchipare a unei fantasme care l-a urmărit toată viața: Doamna brună, Dark Lady: (+-). Partea a doua a ipotezei este adevărată, prima e aproape sigur falsă, deși în vremea lui Shakespeare existau negrese în toate bordelurile din Anglia. Nu e obligatoriu, totuși, ca „Black Lady” să fi fost o negresă. Putea fi pur și simplu o englezoaică mai brunetă, cu părul sîrmos, negru, precum femeia din sonetul 130...

6. WS a fost bisexual: (+-). Greu de dovedit doar pe bază de poezii.

7. WS a avut sifilis. Morbul francez i-a grăbit moartea (--). Sonetul 147 nu poate fi un temei serios pentru această ipoteză.

8. WS știa limbile greacă, latină și franceză; pe cînd era copist în Stratford, l-ar fi citit pe Rabelais în original: (--). Știa, de fapt, ca să folosesc chiar formula lui Benjamin Jonson, „small latin, and less greek / small latine, and lesse greeke”...

9. WS din Stratford-upon-Avon (și nimeni altcineva), al cărui mormînt se găsește în catedrala Holy Trinity din numitul oraș Stratford, alături de mormîntul lui Anne Hathaway, a scris cu mîna lui toate operele atribuite de tradiție lui WS, actor în Londra, poet și dramaturg: (++).

10. WS a fost și în realitate WS: (++).

Pentru a formula aceste ipoteze, Anthony Burgess a folosit două surse: puținele documente care au rămas de la WS și imaginația liberă. Pentru a le evalua, eu am folosit intuiția cartesiană...

Cînd a murit de fapt Shakespeare? Despre o confuzie venerabilă:

https://valeriugherghel.blogspot.com/...

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“For love is one word but many things.”

Anthony Burgess has written a clever book in “Nothing Like that Sun, a novel that imagines Shakespeare’s love life during his teens and his early years as a young actor and playwright in London. This novel is a wordy, at times poetical, text and one that can require your focus to truly appreciate it. The initial reading is slow going and a little confusing due to Mr. Burgess’ style and word usage. It is not a novel that is easily penetrated (pun totally in line with the spirit of this text) but then you start working with the style and language and you and the book adapt to each other and the experience flows better.
The text goes from the late 1570s to 1599 (the year Shakespeare’s writing went to a whole other level). A great pleasure in the book are the numerous cleverly inserted allusions to Shakespeare’s work, the Bible, and other writers and writings of the period. They abound in this text, and it is a small joy in and of itself when you catch them.
Mr. Burgess imagines in the book that once Shakespeare moves to London and starts writing that he gets caught up in a love triangle of sorts between the Earl of Southampton (often thought to be the young man addressed in the Sonnets) and an African woman. He gets the impetus for this idea from the Sonnets which are divided between those addressed to a young man and a “dark lady”. It is a clever device and works well, especially for those who have read the sonnets. You will catch quite a few references in this bit.
Other highlights include a chapter where a young Will writes his first sonnet off the cuff while at the family dinner table. It is a great moment depicting the igniting of artistic impulse. Also fun is the depiction of Will and his wife Anne Hathaway’s early sex life. It is the stuff of Elizabethan kink.
As I finished reading “Nothing Like the Sun” I felt it was very Ecclesiastical in nature as the text constantly made me think of that book’s injunction that “all is vanity.” As I read the novel’s epilogue I am not sure that I “get” it, but I think that biblical verse influenced the themes of this text greatly.
Mr. Burgess’s style can make for dense reading, but I enjoyed this story. Those who love Shakespeare, and/or artful renderings of sex, lust, unselfish love and all those conflicting pulls of the heart that make us so wonderfully human will enjoy this book.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

„…ha Shakespeare műveit Marlowe írta, akkor ki írta Marlowe műveit? Erre a kérdésre a választ abból a tényből merítjük, hogy Shakespeare egy Anne Hathaway nevű nő férje volt. Ez tény. Az új elmélet szerint azonban Marlowe volt Anne Hathaway férje, ami viszont igen nagy szomorúsággal töltötte el Shakespeare-t, ugyanis nem eresztették be a házba.”
(Woody Allen)



Talán nem kockázatos kijelenteni, hogy az életrajzok többnyire életrajzi adatokra épülnek. No de mi van akkor, ha olyasvalakiről akarunk életrajzot fabrikálni, akiről alig tudni valamit? Itt van például ez a Shakespeare, akivel kapcsolatban az önjelölt irodalomtudósok késhegyre menő vitákat tudnak folytatni, hogy egyáltalán létezett-e, vagy igazából csak fiktív személy, aki mögött Marlowe, Essex grófja, Francis Bacon, esetleg Csingiling, a barkácstündér személye bújik meg. Burgess ezt a problémát felettébb kreatívan oldja meg: az ő Shakespeare-je nem magukban a tényekben, hanem a regény nyelvében lakozik. Unortodox életrajz tehát, ami arra tesz kísérletet, hogy a szavakban, kifejezésekben és mondatokban tükrözze vissza azt a nehezen körvonalazható valamit, amit a „shakespeare-ség” kvintesszenciájaként ismer fel az olvasó. Lemond a koherens ívről, egyfajta patchwork-szöveget alkot, ami végig sokkal előbbre valónak tartja a hangulatok és érzések átsugárzását, mint hogy érettségi segédanyagként felhasználható legyen.

Persze ehhez az író ura kell legyen a nyelvnek, vagy nem is ura: egyenrangú társa, forró szeretője. Burgessben megvan ez a potenciál, képes szavaival ábrázolni a korszak miazmás levegőjét, és képes arra is, hogy a zsenit olyan közelségbe hozza, ahol a zseniség jegyei szétszálazhatatlanul összebogozódnak a jellembéli gyengeségekkel. (Vagy nyugodtan mondjuk ki: bűnökkel.) Mocskos és szép szöveg, bátor vállalkozás, helyenként hevülten lelkesültem érte. Mindazonáltal a végébe kicsit belefáradtam, ott mintha elfogyott volna vagy az írói, vagy az olvasói lendület, egyfajta szétesettség hatalmasodott el a regényen, és Burgess nem tudott teljesen meggyőzni arról, hogy ez tervezett szétesés.

[Zoeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do we think when we think of William Shakespeare? There are so many things, indeed. For almost everyone of us, he is the greatest poet, the Bard, so to speak, of all time. For many of us, he was one of the most consummate and adept of storytellers who has and continues to inspire and influence other literature and forms of storytelling significantly and indelibly across the world. For some of us, he was a controversial figure, a man whose works could be accused, in today's modern perspective, as either old-fashioned, sexist, misogynist, Anti-Semitic or gratuitous. And for that equal number of people, he was a rebel, an adroit and taciturn revolutionary of his times whose works and ideas challenged the usual norm of gender, race and human morality. There are some who think him overrated, not without good reason and there are some who think he was criminally underrated as a poet. For everyone of us, though, he continues to remain as an enigma, a fabulous mystery of a man.

For Anthony Burgess, whose "Nothing Like The Sun", the title derived from one of his most quoted and famous sonnets, William Shakespeare, referred to as W.S casually throughout the novel, is a man beset by his earnest but misguided efforts to be good, to conform, to please people and to stay away from sin and a man eventually lured on to sin and vice and thus condemned to pay for his indulgence of the same. The novel is however, hardly, a biography in the conventional sense, spanning from the cradle to the grave and instead settles for a loosely fictional, bawdy, audacious yet frequently poignant story that is concerned primarily with W.S struggling and then finding his footing, first with couplets and then with wildly popular plays, and of course, in the process, falling head over heels, devastatingly, in love with a mistress.

That mistress is of course the primary subject of Burgess' novel, as evidenced by the title; the words come from the sonnet in which he praises his mistress for the wires of black hair that grow on her head, for her breasts of dun and her eyes which are nothing like the sun. The narrative is designed, in a typical touch of post-modernism, as a metaphysical story, narrated by a Professor Burgess, an English academician in Malaysia (the writer's favourite literary landscape) to his audience, while gulping down the local rice wine in gallons as the story keeps on unraveling in its sordid and sprawling fashion. We are introduced to W.S as a young boy just on the brink of adolescence, discovering the first taste of his sexual lust at his young age, married, as a matter of social compromise, to one Anne Hathaway and thus, shortly thereafter, thrust on a mostly humdrum but slowly rewarding journey to fame and acceptance as a man of words, a journey which also leads him to his doom.

While the post-modernism is unmistakable and while Burgess' customary penchant for a whimsical but also precise prose style also nods at the likes of both Joyce and Pynchon, "Nothing Like The Sun" is even more entertaining and rambunctious as a read because the writer also keeps the irreverent, tongue-in-cheek spirit of Fielding and Sterne intact in orchestrating the story of a man of letters rising and falling in love and lust with a slapdash aesthetic and a rollicking, boisterous pace that ensures that we keep on reading and even get swept and drunk on its reckless tone and vigour. Burgess writes dexterously with a fanatical, almost feverish glee throughout the length of 234 pages, starting the narrative with soft notes of whimsy and then tugging us to the larger scene of the tumultuous milieu of the main narrative with miraculous ease. The smaller, more personal moments of domestic quarrels, slapstick and cuckoldry are staged with deadpan wit while the bigger, more absorbing scenes - the pestilential plague sweeping across the breadth of England, the gruesome spectacle of the Spanish traitors hung, drawn and quartered for the conspiracy, the impending doom of the invasion of the Spanish armada - are brilliantly staged, rich with the grittiest details possible and yet rendered neatly and plausibly so that the whole of the horror and anarchy sink into our senses.

Wisely enough, Burgess strips Shakespeare of all potential for greatness. We see him as yet another writer struggling to overcome his bare, hardly notable beginnings and establish some semblance of a livelihood - we should never forget that great literature has been, on many occasions, the result of a simple, unpretentious purpose - of putting quill or pen to paper to tell a story that would catch the fancy of an entire reading public without compromising on quality or credibility. There are ingeniously devised scenes in the narrative that predict or mirror the iconoclast themes of his greatest plays - a hilariously ribald farce with twin sons precedes the same confusion of "A Comedy Of Errors"; the death sentence of Lopez, one of the alleged Spanish traitors and also a Jew, first stirs in him the desire to critique the commonly held views against the race in "The Merchant Of Venice"; an incident of betrayal in marriage inspires both "Hamlet" and "Othello". And most notably, the initially frivolous and then strained friendship between him and his younger aristocratic friend Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, directly serves as the basis of the relationship between Falstaff and King Henry.

There are times, only a few and infrequent, that is, when the writer loses focus of his narrative, when he is too absorbed in grasping the general drift of the times and when W.S himself becomes too anonymous for our benefit, almost losing even credibility as a character. There are times when Burgess' switching of point-of-view interrupts the pace, though it benefits the book vastly once the mistress herself comes into the picture. The book gains a transcendent poetry of its own as it chronicles the tempestuous love, bursting with sexual desire, between W.S and the exotic and enigmatic woman who catches his fancy and tugs him on a path of delicious doom and Burgess writes even more feverishly and vividly than ever, culminating in one of the most spectacular, sensuous and devastatingly poignant conclusions I have ever read recently.

Racy, raunchy, ravishingly beautiful and even a little recklessly put together, "Nothing Like The Sun" , even with its faults and flaws - largely those of overarching ambition - is nothing like any other book you would have read on Shakespeare or even on deconstructing the muse of his sonnets. The dialogue has the whip-cracking punch of Greene, the pace is superbly sustained and even as Burgess honors an entire English tradition of unbridled and boisterous storytelling and wit, this book is enough of his own accomplishment to endure as something of a flawed but fabulous reading experience.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!

[Vijeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.."

Virginia Woolf has written of the new biography in which fact and fiction are commingled in an entirely novel and delicious manner thus bringing forth the true personality of the subject of that biography. Anthony Burgess' 'Nothing Like The Sun' epitomises the new biography. A story of Shakespeare's love life, it is also a revelation of his incandescently fascinating mind. I knew about Shakespeare's literary history and a little of his personal life, but the present novel resurrects his personality, turning words to flesh. There's another biography I've been reading simultaneously with this fictional take on the Bard. Although it maybe more informative, it also very impersonal. Nothing Like The Sun, on the other hand, situates us not only within the Elizabethan period but also within Shakespeare's mind. A mix of Elizabethan English, Shakesperean language, and Joycean wordplay, Nothing....might not be easy to read but for the one who perseveres it can be a richly rewarding experience.

It also has something of a postcolonial bent to it in its unmasking of slavery, serfdom and naked colonialism. That must have made the New Historicists really happy.

"Life...is in a sense all lies. We watch ourselves act everyday. Philip drunk and Philip sober. One is inside the other watching the other".

These lines hint at the Bakhtinian idea that we can never know our true self. It is the other, the one outside us who completes us.

Shakespeare, referred throughout as WS, is always shown searching for love. He calls women a deflection, being time and again disappointed in love.

"...Faustus. A play, yes, a mere play, but the smell of truth in it - not the truth of the present feel of his horse's hot flanks, the sweat running down his nose, Kemp's droning song, but the bigger truth that lay behind this painted curtain."

Fervently he worked, not giving in to the demands of his time, in order to create something timeless and transcendent.

The novel maybe built on speculation, because not much is known about Shakespeare's life, but it fuses life into a bygone era. It offers historical context for most of Shakespeare's work through the relationships of WS with Henry Wriothesley and the Dark Lady.

Also, this was my first Burgess and I devoured it. I wish I could read how writing about the Bard impacted Burgess.

[Hazel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is great fun. Burgess was channelling Shakespeare, so it's full of bawdy imagery, puns and alliterations, all that playful stuff, even poignant at times. There's often rhythm to the prose, and I keep expecting him to break into verse. I'm not knowledgeable enough about Shakespeare's life and work to judge whether Burgess' take is valid, or even remotely convincing. But in my ignorance, it's very enjoyable. Recommended.

Ellen, Elizabeth, have you read this?

[Tracy Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was already impressed with Burgess' language skills in Clockwork, although I now hear he pans that book as a 15 minute bezoomy lark, but there are lines in this book that a good Shakespeare scholar might think that Will wrote himself . I really wanted to give it 4 1/2, because it drags a little in the 4th quarto, but 5 is more accurate than 4 . I would quote to prove myself, but I'm lazy and it's late.
Addendum--
I especially like the scene early in the book, with Will as a teenager ( I think..he's still living in his dad's house with a batch of brothers and sisters). He's writing poetry whilst his (greasy) sister Joan "keels the pot", his little idiot brother is running inside to escape some mischief he caused outside, (shades of Bottom and many other Shakespeare goofballs). His parents are chiding him for wasting time on verse, a point of stillness in a whirlwind of chaos. I also like the tavern scenes.

I think it would be hard to appreciate this book if you are not a hardcore Shakespeare fan and familiar with many of his plays and sonnets (which I am). I know I wouldn't have got many of the connections, even after my college courses on Shakespeare, because it takes a more slow and savoring Bard reading to feel the whole vibe here. I loved it . Here's a quote that doesn't so much try to use the Elizabethan dialect (other parts do)--yet has Shakespearean imagery:

"the city grew a head, glowing over limbs of towers and houses in the rat-scurrying night, and its face was drawn, its eyes sunken, it vomited foul living matter down to ooze over the cobbles, in its delirium it cried Jesus Jesus."

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An interesting historical fiction novel about William Shakespeare’s love life. The story follows Shakespeare’s coming of age and adulthood, focussing on sex, writing and his work / business life. A young William marries a pregnant Anne Hathaway in Stratford. He leaves his wife in Stratford and goes to work in London. In London he chases other women, becoming particularly attached to Fatima, a black woman. He rarely returns to his home and family.

This book was first published in 1964.

[Mel Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book years ago but only just thought about it when I was musing today that I can't think of many memorable historical novels by men. By 'historical novel' I mean a novel based on real people and events. This one speculates on William Shakespeare's love life and was published to coincide with his 400th birthday. Its title references the sonnet: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", and proposes that the much-speculated-upon 'Dark Lady of the Sonnets' was a prostitute and madam named Lucy Negro.

Burgess sticks with a conventional Shakespearean-scholar interpretation of a love triangle between WS (as he's referred to throughout), the Dark Lady and his early patron Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton. He also portrays Shakespeare's marriage to Anne Hathaway as a teenage folly he's forced into after getting the much older woman pregnant. After he leaves her behind in Stratford to go to London, his brother seems to step into his marital role.

What's striking about this book is Burgess's use of a cod-Shakespearean English. I'd have to re-read it to be completely reminded of it, but I remember the language as being vivid and earthy, and the sex as being very enthusiastically, voluptuously described. The story is pretty bog-standard soapie stuff (which I ate up nonetheless!) and it's not really that much about the plays – although, again, perhaps I'd find it more intertextually satisfying on re-reading. Rather, my lasting impression is of a vanished everyday England brought oozing and stinking to life. We often think of the past as a pretty pageant, but certain historical novels I've read capture an ordinariness that's both recognisable and alien.

I first remember encountering this mode of 'grunge history' in Playing Beatie Bow and its vision of a disgusting 19th-century Sydney where cabbages and rotting rabbit heads bobbed in overflowing gutters. Then I encountered it again in Perfume 's vision of 18th-century France, this time olfactorily. Nothing Like the Sun does this too. The next time I encountered such a vision of Tudor England was in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall . These books remind us that powerful, influential, creative people were also vulnerable, mortal creatures with everyday routines and concerns.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

A masterpiece of the English language, a clunker plot-wise. The parts where a young WS runs around chasing tail are infinitely more interesting than the ones where an older WS writes poems and plays. This says a lot for Burgess's stylistic talents, as precious few write as well about sex as they think they do. But it's also a mark against his imagination: making the life of Shakespeare seem hopelessly dull is quite a feat (not the good kind).

I have serious issues with the novel's misogyny. I'm aware that how women in Shakespeare's time were thought of and treated was none of Burgess's doing; still, Burgess made authorial choices, and the way women are treated and the (utter lack of) regard in which they are held says more to me about his own beliefs about women than about Elizabethan London.

[Dani Dányi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Egy legendás szerző élete, modern és sodró regénybe komponálva. A mindent átható nyelvezeti önműködés végül legyűri a cselekményt, az embert, és talán az olvasót is.
Töredékes, önellentmondásokba keveredő életrajzi alapanyagból a Shakespeare-i nyelv, vagyis annak 20.-ik századi emulziója, emulációja olyan elemi humorral és szabadossággal csapong, körkörösen és visszatérő beakadásokkal, játékos és mániákus féktelen erotikával, testiséggel és kórsággal, korképpel és Londonnal, politika, irodalom, színház... Az egész világ. Valahogy végigtelik, elrohan WS magánélete ebben a könyvben, és közben ránk marad egy nyelvi alkotmány, és persze a darabok és versek, mintegy melléktermékeként ennek a könyvbeli életnek, mert úgy érezhetjük, kifordítható ez a folyamat.
Nagyot alkotott Burgess, a maga nemében.

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Totul se învârtea în jurul unei zeităţi – întunecoase, ascunse, mortale, înspăimântător de dezirabilă. Când i-o fi mijit prima oară imaginea ei? De bună seamă că într-o zi de Vinerea Mare. Să fi fost în ’77? ’78? ’79? WS, un flăcăiaş cu jiletca roasă, strâmtă, cu pelerina peticită, dar cu mănuşi noinouţe. Aproape spân, cu puful obrajilor auriu în razele soarelui, cu părul castaniu-roşcat, cu ochi ageri, ca de prepelicar. Dădea cu piciorul, cu draci, ca un flăcăiandru ce era, în smocurile de iarbă de pe malul stâng al Avonului, urmărind cu privirea-i ageră, de prepelicar, bulboana ce se iscă sub podul Clopton. (Clopton, eroul de la New Place, care şi-a lua tălpăşiţa din târg şi a ajuns bogat. Oare el, WS, o să-şi sfârşească zilele tot ca un mare erou al Stratfordului?) Îl durea faptul că ai lui încă îl tratează ca pe un copil, trimiţându-l, împreună cu Gilbert, idiotul familiei, la plimbare cu micuţa Anne şi cu mormolocul de Richard, în aerul sănătos, când el are de livrat nişte mănuşi. Cerul e senin şi aerul înmiresmat deasupra ierbii şi tufişurilor din care ţâşnesc iepurii sălbatici, departe de mormanele de bălegar de pe Henley Street, unde măcelarii îşi ascut cuţitele şi aleg din ochi animalele ce urmează să fie sacrificate, pregătindu-se pentru târgul din Ajunul Paştelui. Animăluţe tinere pier cu un be-e-e-e-e-e-e, victime ale gustului rafinat al oamenilor. Păpuşa de paie, întruchipare a Postului, urma să fie alungată din casă şi lovită cu pietre de mulţime. Aerul e blând şi melancolic, cu un ecou de ploicică venind dinspre sud-vest. E primăvară, iar urechile îi sunt lovite de gemetele unei alte morţi, scoase de altă bestie – albă, cu degete încovoiate şi picioare ca de broască în patul alb ca linţoliul. O văzuse, în dupăamiaza aceea din Joia Sfântă, deschizându-le, nevinovat, uşa iatacului, be-e-e-ee-e-e. N-ar fi trebuit să vadă, nici să audă. Înghesuindu-se, albă. N-au cum să ştie ce-a văzut. — Termină, Dickon! îl repezi el încă o dată pe Richard, care, de data asta, voia să-şi bage degetul plin de muci în ochiul soră-sii. Apoi adăugă: Şi nu te apropia prea mult de apă. Apa e vicleană şi te-neacă, şi, în cel mai bun caz, undele sunt ude. Se lăsă furat de sonoritatea cuvintelor, era încă de pe-acum băiatul vorbelor. „Unde ude unde ude unde ude.“ Anne îşi roti ochişorii cu o privire şireată, la fel cum făcea taică-său, de-i cădeau în mreje toate fătucile, pe vremuri, înainte de-a da de beleaua care îl făcea să-şi roadă toată ziua unghiile.

[Ренета Кирова · Rating 2 out of 5]

С голямо желание почнах биографията на Уилям Шекспир. Много харесвам пиесите и сонетите му още от дете. Помислих, че книгата е като романтичния филм преди време с Гуинет Полтроу „Влюбеният Шекспир", защото за тази пишеше, че е за любовния живот на поета. Останах разочарована в очакванията си, Бърджес не се оказа "мой" писател, а книгата не е "моята" книга. Не успях да я харесам.
Авторът много въображаемо тълкува живота на Шекспир, което за мен не изглеждаше напълно вярно. Никой не знае къде е истината, но имах чувството, че този писател изпадаше в делириум на моменти, които приписваше на Шекспир. Интересуваше го само мръсната страна от живота на Уил, пикантериите и похотта. Даже като гротеска ми звучеше на моменти. А поезията на поета е прекрасна и винаги го чета с удоволствие, но в тази книга някак си беше опорочено всичко, свързано с него. Може аз да бъркам, защото други хора казват, че творбата на Бърджес е върховна и поетична. Но аз опр

[Tom McInnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Burgess book in a row that has positively *thrilled* me in its opening movements and then started to drag around the halfway point before finally limping to a conclusion. I guess it proves that style will only sustain you for so long; eventually, you need to some story.

Having said that, the rendering of the man Shakespeare is convincing and occasionally beguiling - though too often limited by Burgess' insistence on examining only his life as it relates to sexual and romantic conquests.

Strange for a book that often bored me, but I could have done with more of it. More scope, more time spent outside the bedroom, more detail, more incident.

Still, the language is absolutely to die for, and enough to recommend it - even if the overall effect is less than the sum of its magnificent parts.

[Mary McMyne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have now tried to read this twice, first in paperback and this time in audiobook, despite some serious concerns, because it’s relevant to one of my writing projects. There are so many glowing reviews of this novel, but both times I couldn’t get past the mocking portrayal of Anne Hathaway trying to entrap “WS” into marriage. Burgess writes Anne as a sexist caricature, and he does the same for Old Madge the witch. After the third chapter, I was so sure the portrayal of the Dark Lady was going to be horrific, I returned the audiobook in a fit of anger. Maybe I’ll have the emotional energy to skim the rest of the novel later, but for now I give up.

[John Yeoman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A carnival of language! Burgess had a life-long love affair with words, as witness A Clockwork Orange, and this glorious pastiche of 16thc idioms is a poem to the Bard. Forgive the copious in-jokes that only scholars might detect, not least its cryptic nods to Ulysses and Freud. Enjoy the wit, fun and vibrant color!

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just gross. Unless your interested in a Clockwork Orange treatment of Shakespeare, skip it.

[David Buchmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing Like the Sun (1964) imagines the life of Shakespeare from his coming of age to middle age. To me it seemed more of a word-drunk Joycean jeu d'esprit than a historical novel, although I believe it's faithful to known historical and biographical facts. How credible to those who truly know their stuff is what that Burgess invented? I couldn't tell you. Some of the fiction is concerned with positing solutions to "known unknowns" about WS's life, the big one being, who was the "Dark Lady." Although I have some background in WS and his period, as I read I could feel a lot of whooshing as jokes and vocabulary and historical references went over my head, and the metaphysical terms in which WS's artistic development was couched were often too convoluted for me to follow. Still, the erudition and verbal pyrotechnics were grounded in a coherent story supported by interesting quotidian details of Elizabethan life. On the whole, I liked it a lot. I might even return to it again someday, if I can do so with a greater knowledge of Shakespeare's plays.

[Roof Beam Reader (Adam) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary:
Anthony Burgess’s Nothing Like the Sun is a highly fascinating, albeit fictional, re-telling of Shakespeare’s love life. In 234 pages, Burgess manages to introduce his reader to a young Shakespeare, developing into manhood and clumsily fumbling his way through his first sexual escapade with a woman, through Shakespeare’s long, famed (and contested) romance with Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and, ultimately, to Shakespeare’s final days, the establishment of The Globe theater, and Shakespeare’s romance with “The Dark Lady.”

The Good:
Burgess has a command for language. This is my third experience with a work by Anthony Burgess and, once again, I am impressed and awed by his skill as a story-teller and an imagist. While, in typical fashion, he does tend to break-off at points of leisurely prose into something more Gertrude Steine-esque (stream of consciousness, for example), for the most part he keeps this novel in finely tuned form. There is also an exceptional arc to this story, which carries the reader from Shakespeare’s boyhood, to his death, with common characters interacting regularly and to an end result. Even the minor characters, such as Wriothesley’s secretary, are well-established and easily identified, once they have been described. I also very much appreciated the references to other historical figures of the time, and how they impacted Shakespeare’s life and works. Marlowe, Lord Burghley, Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I, The University Wits (Greene, Lyly, Nashe) all make an appearance, or are at least referred to, throughout the novel – their works (as well as works of the Classicists – Ovid, Virgil; and the early dramatists – Seneca, etc) are clearly defined in relation to their impact on Shakespeare’s own designs and interpretations. I found this highly informative and a nice refresher to/reinforcement of my studies of Shakespeare at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels – I enjoyed being reminded of how the playwrights competed and worked together, how Shakespeare was inspired, and by whom, and how politics and the time period played an important role in the successes and failures of the players (Greene, for instance, died sickly and shamed; Marlowe hunted down as an atheist; Jonson’s imprisonment for treasonous writing, and Nashe’s escape from England for the same). Incredibly fascinating and surprisingly sound story, which also appropriately references, with subtlety, many of Shakespeare’s works, at their time of development, so that a reader familiar with the works may catch them without their names actually having been written. Lovely little way for Burgess to reward his learned readers (as Shakespeare oft amused himself by doing).

The Bad:
Burgess takes much creative, though well-researched, license with Shakespeare’s life and the details of his relationship with various people. For instance, while many scholars believe “The Rival Poet” of “The Fair Youth” sonnets to be either Chapman or Marlowe due to circumstances of fame, stature, and wealth (ego, essentially), Burgess breaks from the traditional interpretation of “The Rival Poet” to explore the possibility that Chapman was, in fact, a rival for Henry Wriothesley’s attention and affection and, for this reason, Shakespeare became jealous and critical of Chapman. Similarly, the ultimately un-established relationship between Shakespeare and Wriothesley, Shakespeare and “The Dark Lady” (or Lucy, in this novel), as well as, even Shakespeare and his wife – are all quite largely fictional. That being said, while the novel’s general details – including historical happenings, political and religious tensions, and rivalries between the poets and the players are all well envisioned – the novel is dangerous in that the story of Shakespeare’s life comes across so logical here that it almost appears factual (and, who knows, a large portion of Burgess’s interpretations may have been true). Thus, the writing is fantastic, but the liberties taken are troublesome.

Final Verdict (4.0 out of 5.0)
The story was well written and enjoyable. It was also, I thought, a fascinating glimpse at history and this particularly time period. Burgess reminds the reader of many of the fears and prejudices of the time, and seems to be more critical of Elizabeth I than Shakespeare himself (most scholars believe) was. I appreciated Burgess’s cleverness and subtlety, but also his openness and candor in terms of sexuality and taboo relationships. Burgess clearly wants to open the reader’s eyes to what very well could have happened, yet is never acknowledged. Still, some of the author’s creative license, I think, goes beyond an artistic historian’s realm. When I compare Nothing Like the Sun to, say, Stone’s Lust for Life I find the latter to be much more honest to the facts as we know them, whereas the former is a bit more adventurous in scope. Overall, though, it was a highly educational, enjoyable read of an interesting and valid perspective look on Shakespeare.

[Cristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a funny question to ask yourself when reading a novel on Shakespeare’s love life, but while reading this the question kept coming to mind when I least expected it—does Anthony Burgess actually understand Shakespeare? Does he even like him? Or did he just hang around the other Shakespeare fanboys a little too much and too long and so not liking Shakespeare would have been socially gauche?

So this book is little more than Shakespeare erotica, tastefully written, with a good feel for the spirit of the Elizabethan lingo and ethos—bouncy, condensed, smooth-flowing. That is all the good Burgess accomplishes from this otherwise uselessly masturbatory exercise. Although there are plenty of cute allusions to the works, little nuggets sprinkled here and there, little of Shakespeare’s life, works, or personality is brought to any convincing life. The Sonnet drama is especially followed in a tiresomely literal way with little self-awareness, clever reshuffling, or even explanation of the holes and ambiguities in the record beyond the obvious. Most disappointingly, neither Southampton nor Fatima (as this particular Dark Lady is called) have any agency as complete characters. Since the love stories do not satisfy, and Anne is rendered almost monstrous, the erotica falls flat in its face. And something is very wrong when you make a bisexual love triangle unsexy, uncomfortable, and even regressive. (Burgess, you fiend.)

This is the trouble, I think, with Shakespeare historical fiction (or as the youths now would call it, RPF): It tends to refashion one of history’s most mysterious figures into a likeness of its author. Likewise, the Bard here is a complete mishmash of slightly paradoxical character traits with little coherency: Boorish and elitist, horny and straight-laced, solipsistic and...well, just solipsistic. When he is not pondering on his inspiration or acting on the imperatives of his libido, he provides meta commentary and delivering neat packaged aphorisms of his wisdom. Example: “Marriage is order. One suffers but cannot break it. Learn from that. One suffers that order may be maintained.” Ha, kill me now.

The Bard is not the only one who suffers from character assassination, unfortunately. His family and peripheral characters don’t fare well either as the quickly sketched two-trait caricatures they are, and even Elizabethan England is drawn with all the brutish-and-short clichés of medieval times, bordering on suffering porn.

But by far the worse off is Anne Hathaway. Hands down the worst portrayal of her in fiction, and that is saying something. A nymphomaniac who date-rapes young Shakespeare while he sleeps off a hangover under the crab tree, (referencing an old legend), she also cheats on Shakespeare with his brother Richard. Burgess!Shakespeare almost crows in triumph when he finally discovers them in flagrante, “beginning to glow and shiver with the cuckold’s unspeakable satisfaction, the satisfaction of confirmation, the great rage which justifies murder and the firing of cities and makes a man rise into his whimpering strong citadel of self-pitying aloneness.” Or this: “‘It was she,’ he said. ‘It was she that made me.’ He began to whine. ‘I did not want to, but she——’ He even pointed a trembling finger at her, standing, arms folded, bold as brass by the second-best bed of New Place. ‘Aye, aye,’ said WS, almost comfortingly, ‘it was the woman.’” This is so textbook it hurts.

Misanthropy aside, I suppose it is understandable, the urge to kick influential historical figures off their pedestals and humble/humiliate them as flawed, outrageous, silly men. Shakespeare, after all, is more than just a man or even a body of work, but a pillar of western literature, institutionalized and ubiquitous. And where there is inflation, there will always be the urge to deflate, humanize, yank firmly down to earth. But aren’t you supposed to be above this adolescent subversion-for-subversion’s sake rebel attitude? Isn’t this bashing more appropriate for bad faith critics and edgelords than fandom geeks? It’s one thing to have Shakespeare cheerfully romping about Italy with the Dark Lady, it’s another to draw him up as an elitist bisexist misogynist with rape-y and pedophilic tendencies. Not to mention falling for the most clichéd explanations for legendary creativity possible—an active sex life. Shakespeare in Love called, it says it already did this, and (technically) better.

Pity. Burgess is a good stylist, his understanding of language nigh masterly; but there are limits even to good writing. Without the substance that should attend this, this becomes a mere mirror of the worst of scholarly excesses and fandom-style speculation, both of the 60s and now. Once again Shakespeare shames everybody with his mastery of both. He had something to say and boy, did he say it the best.

[Beatrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all know or think we know something about William Shakespeare: everyone knows the titles of at least a couple of his works, everyone knows some basic biographical facts about him, and everyone knows his portrait which is featured not only on the cover of Burgess’ novel but also in probably every single high school textbook of literature.

The main character of Nothing Like the Sun is William Shakespeare, and the novel is about his life and artistic career. Just like a regular biography, the book features such details as Shakespeare’s birthplace, the name of his spouse, and the names of the theaters and companies he worked for after moving to London from Stratford-upon-Avon. However, all this is just background, and this novel is about everything which is usually left out from the regular biographies: what was Shakespeare like as a friend, lover, father? What were his passions and how did he live his everyday life? Where did he get the ideas for his plays and sonnets from? Who or what inspired him? What was he like as a person – honest, open, careful, corrupt?

400 years after his death, these questions, of course, cannot be answered with any kind of „scientific” accuracy and authenticity – and Burgess didn’t attempt to do this. What he wrote is not a biography proper, but rather an exceedingly clever and entertaining fictive biography in which he doesn’t write about the „real” Shakespeare but about the poet as he may-have-been.

The great playwright starts out as a true poet-in-the-making: during his teenage years, when he should spend his time learning the basics of his father’s trade (glove-making), his mind is occupied not with gloves and leather, but with puns and as yet immature and clumsy sonnets. And even though the young bard is not at all sure that he has any artistic talent whatsoever, he is definitely sure that he doesn’t want to spend his life working as a glover, so when he’s presented with the chance to join a theater company, he doesn’t think twice before leaving his family for London. After his escape, he spends most of his time in London where a lot of work, a lot of animosity and a lot of success lies a-waiting for him – and this is also where he meets his two muses: the golden man and the dark lady who inspire him to write his sonnets.

Shakespeare, as depicted/imagined by Burgess, is an intriguing and ambiguous character: he is very practical and businesslike, but his mind is just as full of fascinating ideas and free-floating lines of poems as we like to think about great poets; he enjoys the company of his lovers and his life in general, but he cannot for a moment forget the melancholy fact that he’s getting older; he seems to neglect his family and hardly ever pays them a visit, but he never forgets to send them enough money for their daily needs. And so on.

Reading about the (fictitious) course of the poet’s life is exciting in itself, but Burgess offers other thrills and games as well. For instance, he includes some famous lines from Shakespeare's plays in the poet's conversations with others, or he mentions a seemingly unimportant episode in Shakespeare’s life in which you can recognize the basis or a crucial plot element of one of his later works. Just one example: Shakespeare once witnesses an execution which is carried out by the executioner cutting out the convict’s heart. And of course you never know how a real life event is actually transformed into the artistic output of a writer (or if it ever gets transformed into art), this episode may easily remind you of The Merchant of Venice, the plot of which, among other things, revolves around cutting out a pound of meat from a man’s body, and you may think that Shakespeare must have gotten this element of the play from the execution he saw several years earlier.

And the novel is full of literary games like this, so if you happen to enjoy thinking about topics such as the connections between reality and fiction, and their effects on each other, and if you’re prone to look for allusions and half-hidden references even in the most innocent lines of a novel, then you will quite probably enjoy this creative and marvelously witty book.

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing Like the Sun has made me a Burgess fan, since I was never going to finish reading A Clockwork Orange beyond the fist two pages, which I tried doing back in my late teens and got thoroughly turned off (the beginning of the movie isn't much more inspiring to me, so I'm not tempted to make more efforts no matter how many "best of" lists that title is feature on). This book purports to be a biography of Shakespeare and introduces him from his late teens, when he was presumably occupied chasing women and bedding every single one of those who accepted his advances, until he got caught into marriage by the brothers of one Anne Hathaway, one of the several women he impregnated, though not at all his first or last choice as a wife. The story follows his career path from his first pen scratchings until his demise from syphilis, with his first sonnets devoted to what was reportedly one of the greatest loves of his life: a young teenage lord of great beauty, here presented as being Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. His second great love is a "Dark Lady", also mentioned in his sonnets, who was probably from Indian descent, from the details we glean in this fictionalized history. Burgess presents a ridiculously lusty William Shakespeare who seems entirely convincing considering the countless bawdy references in his plays, but also a very realistic portrait of a man of genius who is unsure of himself and his position in the world, blending the sublime and the ordinariness of life. Among my favourite books this year (2015).

I should mention I listened to an excellent audio version narrated by Sean Barrett, and also that I'm very glad I didn't let the utterly confusing beginning of the novel discourage me from continuing on; I can be very slow on the uptake sometimes, and it took me some time to catch on to the fact that "WS" was our main man. I've got two more Burgesses waiting in the wings, one being the Booker shortlisted Earthly Powers, which I look forward to tackling though it is of rather impressive length and scope.

4.5 stars: I will likely revisit this book at least once.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 5 out of 5]

How many novelists can you think of with the required talent and ambition to take on the task of writing a novel about Shakespeare's love life?

Anthony Burgess had both the daring and the talent to give it a try. It doesn't feel like a stretch to have such an ambitious polymath imagine himself inside the Immortal Bards head at the moment of creation, nor in his bed at the moment of climax.

Burgess' Bard is as lusty and ambitious as all young men, yet full of pity and sympathy also, unable to hold his drink, inspired by the golden vision of a Dark Lady indirectly inspired by the ravings of a local Stratfordian loon.

Outmanoeuvred into marrying Anne Hathaway after loving a different Anne entirely, Will heads to London to make his name, finding patronage and companionship with the kind and reckless Henry Wriothesley, then discovering his Dark Lady in a black exile from the East Indies named Fatimah, who gives him the 'gift' of more than just her love.

Burgess completely revels in the idiom of Elizabethan language, the compounds, the wordplay, the endless puns - there must be a dozen on the Bard's first name alone. The fullness of the words they enjoyed are testament to a confident nation still stretching out their relatively new language, words such as 'croshabells', 'galligaskins', 'peripatottering' etc.

This passage, with young Will drowning his sorrows in a salubrious pub, should help you decide if you want to read the novel or not:

'Drink, then. Down it among the titbrained molligolliards of country copulatives, of a beastly sort, a;;, their browned pickers a-clutch of their spilliwilly potkins, filthy from handling of spade and harrow, cheesy from udder new-milked, slash mouths agape at some merry tale from that rogue with rat-skins about his middle, coneyskincap on's sconce.'

Loved the subject matter, loved the daring approach to it.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to make of Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess. The only other book I'd read by Burgess was A Clockwork Orange, a strange and interesting story of a dystopic future. Nothing Like the Sun is a tale of William Shakespeare and his purported relationships with the Earl of Southampton and Fatima, the Dark Lady.
Like Clockwork, Burgess has a way with language, Nothing Like the Sun written in an oldish English, as if you are reading a Shakespearan play. The story, itself, starts with a young William's life in Stratford, working for his father's glove - making business. Shakespeare is a moody boy, writing sonnets, chasing women until he is forced to marry Anne Hathaway after getting her pregnant.
Shakespeare then joins a travelling troupe of actors, begins writing their plays and moves to London, where he meets the Earl of Southampton and becomes involved in a romantic relationship. As well, influenced by a previous experience with a black prostitute in Bristol, he begins a relationship with Fatima, who he meets in London.
All the while, he writes sonnets for his lovers and plays for the public. His family is mentioned, he sometimes visits Stratford and at one point discovers his wife may not have been faithful to him either.
But, ultimately, for it being an interesting historical story that flowed nicely once you got used to the language and spent a bit of time with the book, I wondered if it really meant that much to me or if it provided me with any real information about Shakespeare. I'll have to try Bill Bryson's history of Shakespeare's life and compare... Just not right this minute. (3 stars)

[David Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am constantly amazed by Anthony Burgess. Using the evidence of the surviving poetry, especially the sonnets, and what is known about the chronology of the plays, Burgess has spun an utterly credible narrative of Shakespeare’s early life. More astounding to me is the way he recreates the atmosphere of England in the sixteenth century; the story teems with detail. And then there’s the language. The man who did studies of both Shakespeare and Joyce really cut loose with the words in this novel; I guess he figured that if they could do it, he could do it. The result is an intoxicating mix of rich language, historical detail, and small bits about the poems and plays. It’s not a quick or easy read. But it’s worth the effort we put into it.

Take the opening of the fourth chapter:

“It was this sonnet, then, copied in a good hand with no blot, that nestled snug in his breast that warm evening of May as, with S. Brailes, Ned Thorpe and Dick Quiney, he walked or slued (a skinful of ale to enthrone boldness) westward to Shottery. These were good brown laughing fellows who knew little of bookish learning or of poesy either, but they dearly loved a jest, especially if it entailed sore hurt for others, as for example, skull-cracking, jibing, making skip the rheumy ancientry, thieving, wenching and the like.”

They almost sound like the droogs from A Clockwork Orange, in Elizabethan England.

When I took a class in linguistics in grad school, our professor told us that Joyce had the third largest vocabulary of any writer in English, Milton the second, and Shakespeare the first.[1] I honestly wonder where Burgess would rank. You could say he’s not at the same level as those writers in terms of talent, and I wouldn’t dispute that. But for sheer variety of style, he ranks with almost anyone. A number of his early novels (like One Hand Clapping) employ utterly simple diction. But this book, along with A Clockwork Orange, explodes.

The novel is divided into two parts, the first covering late adolescence and early adulthood, until 1587, the second from 1592-99, by which time Shakespeare had written a number of famous plays but not his greatest tragedies, which scholars date after 1600. The young Shakespeare that Burgess portrays is not an aspiring writer, especially. He does feel constrained by provincial life in Stratford, longing for something larger, and has an overwhelming wish to be a gentleman. His father is a glover, but his mother came originally from a prominent family. Shakespeare works for his father for a time, learning the trade, but also making connections. It is while he apprentices with another man that he first encounters a prostitute named Fatimah, who will become the Dark Lady of the sonnets, but he can’t get involved with her then, as much as he wanted to; he doesn’t have the money.

Young WS—as Burgess refers to him—does have an eye for the ladies, and isn’t terribly particular. One early affair was with an older woman named Anne Hathaway, the most experienced and ardent lover he’d come across. Unfortunately, he gets her pregnant—an occupational hazard for a young rake—and her family forces him to marry her. I thought she was a catch at the time, level-headed and more experienced, very much in love with the young man. She moves in with his family in Stratford—his father, mother, and two brothers—and somehow there is a strain from the start. I honestly didn’t understand what the problem was. I think it was more provincial life than Anne herself who bothered him. He longed to get away.

He begins composing verse in a desultory way, sonnets and also longer narrative poems (it’s hard to see Venus and Adonis as a casual pastime). One way for a young man to get ahead was to find a royal patron, and he discovers that Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, has a love for language and verse similar to his. The man is wildly enthusiastic, happy to become Shakespeare’s patron, and eventually the men become lovers. Wriothesley is good-looking, slightly feminine, and quite sensual. Soon WS was consorting with theater people and beginning to compose plays, which enabled him to live in London and support the family back in Stratford.

Burgess by that time is in full-bore speculative mode, finding ways for the known plays of that time to correspond with moments in WS’s life, also his various interests. Eventually Fatimah comes back into his life—she is seen as a rare beauty among the aristocrats—and Wriothesley grows interested in her too. WS contracts syphilis from the woman—another hazard of the day—and Burgess seems to suggest that the mental changes the illness brings about account for the more imaginative later plays. I don’t know if I buy that, but Burgess details the progress of the disease in painful detail.

My writing mentor, Reynolds Price, once told us in class that Tolstoy knew as he was writing his great novels that he was one of the great writers in world history. Milton knew. Wordsworth knew. I wondered about that. The William Shakespeare that Burgess portrays has no idea if his early narrative poems have any worth at all; he isn’t sure if his dedication to Wriothesley might be presumptuous. And the older Shakespeare just works assiduously, trying to make a living, with no particular understanding that Romeo and Juliet and Henry IV Part I are among the finest things ever penned in English. There’s also the question of where it all came from. How did this son of a glover, who never attended university, have such a gift of language and knowledge of humanity? Of that, I’m afraid, Burgess doesn’t have clue.

But how could he? It’s inexplicable. Just as inexplicable as his own vast talent.

[1] Modern estimates dispute that. They put Joyce first and Shakespeare second.

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[Tom Nittoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

As impressed as I was that Burgess captured the Shakespearean tongue in novel format. The story never capitavited me or brought my interest below the surface. I didn't get into WS head or even learn more about his upstart or career. It's told in small vignettes, most of which aren't very interesting. It's an interesting approach, but I felt that chapter 7 in part 2 was the peak for the book, when the chapter is told through a series of journal entries. As far as criticizing a book of this magnitude I can simply say no more than it wasn't for me. I'm sure there are those who find subtle, accurate, and poignant, but as fan of both WS and Burgess I found simply put boring and uninspired.

[Joseph Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a fictional biography of Shakespeare, Burgess paints a brilliant and realistic portrait of WS. Burgess explores his complicated family and love life. This is the core of the Story. This is where Burgess creates a dynamic character...a balding, sometimes self loathing middle aged WS. Frustrated by circumstance and aware of his own mortality.

[Barbara A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this while I was taking a college Shakespeare class. I enjoyed it then. I would like to reread it after 40 years tho...

[Gabi Coatsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

London - Shakespeare